


The Fast-Penta Test

by a_t_rain



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Imperial Security, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_t_rain/pseuds/a_t_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of ImpSec training involves trying fast-penta for yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fast-Penta Test

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of fill-in-the-backstory ficlet that I wrote as background for [A Bit Too Much Good Work](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4168539/chapters/9409704), and I figured I'd go ahead and post it, although I'm not sure it works all that well as a standalone. You should probably read either the first couple of chapters of ABTMGW or [Protective Coloration](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2753243) first (it doesn't particularly matter which, as they both introduce McSorley and Alain as characters).
> 
> Takes place about a week or so after "Protective Coloration."

“Has it occurred to you that Lenahan’s instructions seem a little ... contradictory?”

“You mean the part where he said to find a partner you trusted, and then said it might be better to pick someone you didn’t _know_ all that well?”

“Yes. That.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it ... Um, would you rather have someone else who isn’t me?”

“No. Would you?”

“No. D’you think you could get out of it because of, you know, that heart-thing you have?”

“I already tried. They said it was perfectly safe.”

“Bad luck.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we’ll both test positive for the allergy. I’ve just been thinking, actually ... out west where I’m from, there are these dreadful native plants that make _everyone_ break out in hives at the slightest touch ... I wonder if I could get my cousin Donna to send me a sample, and if it would be possible to break into Lenahan’s office and spike his test patches?”

“Um ... you _really_ don’t want to do this, do you?”

“It’s ... unpleasant, by all accounts.”

“I don’t think I mind that much. I’ll go first if you like.”

“Are you sure?”

“No problem. I mean, how bad can it be?”

* * *

“What is your name?”

_Alain Anderson._

“How old are you?”

_Twenty._

“You’ll observe, Vorrutyer, that when the questions are strictly factual, there’s no difficulty in getting the subject to produce the desired answers. But if you ask a question that is open to _interpretation_ , you’ll often elicit an answer to a different question than the one you thought you were asking. Anderson, why are you here?”

_Well, you see, my da was a baker’s apprentice, and my ma’s brother worked on a chicken farm and he used to deliver eggs to the bakery every morning, only one day he was sick, so he asked my ma to make his delivery run for him, and that’s how they met ..._

“So you have to be very precise in how you phrase your questions, and ask them a few different ways just to be sure. Let me rephrase this one. Anderson, describe the events that led you to apply to become a civilian operative for ImpSec.”

_... so I applied to the Service Academy first, but I didn’t pass the written exams, and I guess that’s fair enough because I know I’m not the smartest person ever, but there are plenty of Vor who aren’t the smartest people ever, and they always seem to get in even though it’s supposed to be equal opportunity now and all that, I think it has to do with the kind of schools they go to and the way their parents always hire tutors if they don’t do well enough on their own, so anyway, my da said it served me right for wasting my time on that foolishness and it was high time I went back to work at the bakery and stopped being such a dreamer, so I did for a while, but I’ve always wanted to do something more important with my life, and this seemed like a second chance, y’know? ..._

“That’s enough, Anderson. I’m going to administer the antagonist now. Vorrutyer, go to the dispensary and get Anderson some painkillers.”

* * *

“Lenahan said to bring you some painkillers.”

“Thanks. I’ve got the worst headache of my _life_. Ugh.”

“What’s it like, other than that?”

“It ... feels kind of nice while you’re under it. Warm and floaty. You feel like nothing you say or do could possibly be wrong, and it’s like everyone in the room is your best friend ever and you want to _talk_ to them. It’s like being drunk, only more so.”

“It sounds ... dangerous.”

“No shit. Can you imagine what it would be like, knowing you had just confessed to a _murder_ or something because you felt like the interrogator was your _friend?_ ... Um, By? That reminds me, I hope I didn’t say anything that you found ... offensive, or anything?”

“Good Lord, no, you didn’t say anything remotely offensive! Why do you ask?”

“Well, I remember saying something about how most Vor aren’t the smartest people ever ...”

“Ah. Well, obviously, I _am_ the smartest person ever, so I knew you couldn’t mean me.”

“Obviously. And the rest of it ... well, it’s all true, of course, but none of it’s _your_ fault.”

“Try telling that to McSorley.”

“I did, one time. I don’t think it took.”

* * *

_... so I said, you might at least try to be consistent in your accusations, since however false and monstrous this rumor is, it does seem to be strictly heterosexual in nature, and he said, I always knew you would turn out exactly like my brother Ges, you even talk like him, and Julia said, will you stop looking at us and seeing people who died a long time ago, and I thought that might wake him up because he honestly did care for Julia, after his fashion, but then he said, how dare you side with him over me, can’t you see he’s poisoned your mind, and then he slapped her, not really hard but as if he were trying to bring her to her senses, but still, he hit my sister and I wasn’t quick enough to get between them, I was never any good at protecting her when it counted, and so then I tried to say, you bastard, is making her choose sides all you care about, don’t you care at all that she’s trying to tell you the truth, only by then I’d completely lost it and I’d started crying ... so anyway, I suppose the real reason why I’m here is that I do care about truth, I think I care about it more than anything else there is ..._

“Enough! Anderson, go and get Vorrutyer some painkillers. And ... give him a little space after he comes round.”

* * *

“Thank you, but ... I don’t need them. It doesn’t _hurt_. It’s more like ... this deathly cocktail of self-loathing plus being appalled at just how _easy_ it was for them to get me to spill all of that, you know?”

“It sounds awful.”

“Let’s just say I _wish_ I had the worst headache of my life.”

“I brought you some tea, too.”

“Thanks. _That_ , I do need. But ... you didn’t bring any for yourself.”

“Captain Lenahan thought you might want to be left alone for a while.”

“I don’t. And you made the tea, so half of it’s yours.”

(The sound of a liquid being poured from one vessel into another, a brief silence, and then Anderson’s voice.) “Did you want to ... talk about any of that? About your family?”

“No. Very much _not_. Except – you do believe it all happened the way I said it happened, right?”

“Of course I do. You were on _fast-penta_.”

“Right. Silly question. Maybe that stuff’s not as evil as I thought. And, well, at least it was in front of Lenahan and not McSorley. Small mercies.”

“I figured they arranged it that way on purpose. Everyone knows you and Lieutenant McSorley are sort of ... _incompossible_.”

“They arrange every little detail, I think.”

“Yeah, it’s all about putting us through that one last stealth-round of tests, isn’t it? That _question_ ... I thought at first they were just trying to demonstrate how the stuff worked without getting into anything too personal, but now I’m thinking it isn’t like that at all. They want to know the _real_ reason why we’re here, not just the stuff we said in our application interview, and I expect it _always_ ends up being terribly personal for everyone.”

“Well, I suppose they have to find some way to spot the crazies ... being a case in point, myself. I’m surprised they let us pick our own partners, because honestly, if it were anyone but you, I’d be hating myself a lot _more_ right now.”

“Maybe that’s part of the test too. You _know_ they were watching us to see who we picked, and _how_ we picked ...”

“And of _course_ they’re probably bugging the dormitories, too, to hear what we talk about afterward. Hi, McSorley! Hope you’re finding our repartee very enlightening! Alain, dearest, now that I’ve _finally_ gotten you into my bunk, shall we give him something to _listen_ to?”

(Laughter, then Anderson’s voice again.) “D’you think we passed? Honestly, I’m not really sure I want to pass. Have you thought about how all the people who trust us after this are going to be _wrong_ to trust us?”

“I’ve thought about that every day since we _started_. I mean, it’s rather theoretical in my case because I’m not sure anyone _does_ trust me, but ... now that we’ve experienced fast-penta for ourselves ... it makes you think a lot about the ethics of it. Well, maybe that’s all part of the plan, too. Maybe they _want_ us to be thinking and talking about these things, before we have to make any decisions in the field.”

“I dunno, we’re still and always going to be _civilians_. I’m not sure they _want_ us to ask the hard questions about ethics, or to think for ourselves more than we’re supposed to. I mean, even the stuff Captain Lenahan taught us in Analysis, that’s just baby analysis, right? It’s not the really sophisticated stuff that the military guys learn.”

(Pause. Vorrutyer’s voice.) “Alain, don’t ever listen to anyone who tries to tell you you’re not intelligent. I mean it.” (Another pause.) “So, now that we’ve worked out that we’ve both failed, you for asking questions above your pay grade and me for being just generally fucked-up beyond redemption ... what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

“Not sure. _Not_ fifty years of making icing-sugar flowers, though.”

“Making icing-sugar flowers sounds _restful_. Do you think your father would give me a job?”

“You’d be fired in a _week_ , By. For putting double-entendres on Grandma’s ninetieth birthday cake, and filling the doughnuts with creme de meth...”

“But that would be such a _good_ combination. Like coffee and doughnuts, only infinitely more _effective_. And Grandma wouldn’t be Grandma if she hadn’t had sex at least once, so she might appreciate that sort of cake...”

(More laughter.)

* * *

Lenahan switched off the recording. “Pass, both of them.” He looked at McSorley, as if defying him to argue.

“Agreed. Very strong pass, in Anderson’s case. He caught onto almost everything, although I’m a bit troubled that he _thinks_ we don’t want them to think too hard. Can we put it on record that in a _just_ society, Anderson would have been admitted to the Service Academy?”

“There isn’t enough space on the _forms_ to describe all the things that would have happened differently in a just society ... Are you willing to call Vorrutyer a strong pass, as well? I don’t think Anderson would have gotten that far without that first nudge from him, and he _was_ the one who picked up on the fact that we were listening in.”

“And then proceeded to rattle on as if we weren’t.” ( _Rattle on_ wasn’t quite the right phrase, McSorley realized as soon as he’d spoken; that was what Vorrutyer did when he knew other people _were_ listening. The real clue that he’d missed a trick was that he had gone on talking more or less _seriously_.)

“I’m not so sure. That bit where he told Anderson not to listen to anyone who tells him he isn’t intelligent ... I think that might have been partly for you.”

“ _Manipulative_ little Vor brat. All right. Strong pass.”

“One more thing,” said Lenahan. “I know you’re not over-fond of the dynamic between the pair of them, but I think it’s clear they’re not going to drop each other after training is over, and it’s better if it’s all sanctioned and above-board. Note, also, it’s thanks to Anderson that no crazy-ass Vorrutyer-schemes to sabotage the test patches with allergy-plants actually _materialized_. What do you think about recommending Anderson as a regular contact for Vorrutyer?”

McSorley had known this was coming. The real reason why potential undercover agents got thrown into training camps with the rest of the civilian operatives, despite the increased risk of having their cover compromised, was that they burned out quickly if they didn’t get a _lifeline_ , in the form of a trusted friend or two who knew what they were. And you couldn’t assign people friends by fiat; you had to wait and watch the dynamics among the trainees. Which meant that Anderson – who might have made a perfectly good field agent – was about to be reassigned: one more prole boy ordered to put his dreams on indefinite hold.

ImpSec was not, McSorley reminded himself, any respecter of caste; it could easily have happened the other way around if Lev Brodsky hadn’t been so adamant that he wanted Vorrutyer, and if Vorrutyer hadn’t been so goddamn _gifted_. But giftedness was cultivated as well as inborn; for example, Vorrutyer had obviously attended a school with the resources to hire a damn fine drama teacher...

“Vorrutyer’s got plenty of other friends,” McSorley tried, although he knew this wasn’t really true. It was impossible to conceive of Vorrutyer having the conversation they’d just heard with anyone else.

Lenahan shook his head. “He’s _friendly_ with the others. He’s _friends_ with Anderson.”

“How is it going to look to Vorrutyer’s crowd? Why would he even _know_ someone like Anderson?”

“Anderson’s very good-looking. Vorrutyer ... well, he knows how to take _no_ for an answer, but he’s not blind to the fact that Anderson’s very good-looking. From the outside, it’s going to look exactly like the sort of relationship that people of Vorrutyer's class are used to politely turning a blind eye toward, _especially_ when it’s with a prole.”

Everything Lenahan had said was right, but it felt wrong, for reasons McSorley had trouble articulating. He thought about how Anderson had wanted to do something important with his life, and wondered if being Vorrutyer’s support system counted as _important_ , but that didn’t seem to be the sort of argument that was likely to sway any of the higher-ups. And McSorley didn’t know how to explain all the other things he didn’t like without sounding petty: Anderson’s anxiety that he might have said something to offend, his willingness to go first and to fetch tea afterward ... Vorrutyer hadn’t _asked_ for any of it, he had to admit, but he had accepted it all as a matter of course.

“Anderson deserves better than to be made the subject of scurrilous gossip,” he said at last. “He also deserves friends of his _own_ age and class, ones who aren’t going to be _leading_ him ...”

“You were the one who recommended a strong pass for Anderson. Don’t forget the criteria: if you’re calling it a strong pass, that means _you_ think he’s got a solid ethical compass and the ability to think for himself. And I’m pretty sure Anderson’s old enough to know what he’s doing when he chooses his friends.”

“Yes. Fair point. That reminds me, there’s one last bit that I’d like to play again.” McSorley tapped at the console. Anderson’s voice: ... _and I expect it always ends up being terribly personal for everyone_ ... “That’s ... rather extraordinary for a kid of twenty, don’t you think?”

“Extraordinary reasoning? No, I don’t think so. I’ll have to have a word with Anderson about extrapolating from insufficient data. Nine times out of ten, we don’t get anything _like_ Vorrutyer’s story, thank God.”

“Extraordinary _manners_ , Lenahan. The kind they _don’t_ teach those pretty little Vor buds at their finishing schools.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose it is a bit ... extraordinary if you look at it that way. So – potential contacts?”

“All right.”

“I don’t think you’ll be sorry. They bring out the right side of each other.”


End file.
